Rethinking Marx

Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series III, Asia, Volume 26 General Editor George F. McLean Rethinking Marx Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXVI Edited by Zou Shipeng Yang Xuegong The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2007 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Rethinking Marx : Chinese philosophical study, xxvi / edited by Zou Shipeng, Yang Xuegong. p. cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series III, Asia ; v. 26) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. I. Zou, Shipeng. II. Yang, Xuegong. III. Title. IV. Series. B3305.M74R482007 2007006772 335.4092--dc22 CIP ISBN-13: 978-1-56518-244-8 (pbk.) Table of Contents Introduction 1 Part I. The Development of Marxist Philosophy Today Chapter I. Philosophy and Life 7 Li Wenge Chapter II. On the Modernity of Marxist Philosophy from 17 the Point of View of the Transition of Philosophy Sun Meitang Chapter III. The History of Studies of Marx’s Texts and 27 Reflections on Their Methodology: A Preliminary Review Nie Jinfang Chapter IV. Economics as an Historical Science: 37 A Philosophical Review of the Crisis of Economics Shen Xiangping Chapter V. The Implication of Neglecting Ricardo in 47 the Interpretation of Karl�� Marx’s Philosophy: A Comment on G. Lukacs’s Interpretation�� of Marx Tang Zhengdong Chapter VI. The Study of Marxist Western Philosophy in 55 Chinese Academe and Its Defects Wang Yuchen Part II. The Content of a Contemporary Marxist Philosophy Chapter VII. The Marxist Negation of Metaphysics 71 Yang Haifeng Chapter VIII. Marx’s Philosophy and Ontology 77 Yang Xuegong Chapter IX. On Truth, Goodness and Beauty 99 Cui Xinjian Chapter X. The Theory of Will 111 Zhang Mingcang Chapter XI. ��A Reconsideration of Marx’s Idea of 123 “The Association of Free Individuals” Yu Jianxing Chapter XII. Love: Partial or Equal?--A Comparative Study 135 of Confucian, Mohist and Christian Love Xu Changfu Chapter XIII The Existential Turn and Practice-Existentialism 157 Zou Shipeng Index 167 Introduction Etienne Gilson once compared the history of philosophy to a giant laboratory for testing the validity and adequacy of philosophical ideas. These ideas can be generated out of fear and hate or of love and devotion, but they are not only for the mind; they guide life with others in this world. Over time this experience calls for strengthening some elements and reformulating others. Through this struggle to live, philosophy is subtly but inescapably cor- rected and rebalanced. Within brief periods egregious mistakes become apparent and call ur- gently to be addressed, but over long periods of time important but incomplete insights make their important contributions before revealing their limitations and requiring additional and healing insights. Thus existentialism may last but a decade, the individualism, skepticism and scientism of modernity may last for four centuries, while the objective bias of Greek thought may last 25 centuries before being challenged by the expanded horizons of globalization. Jean Piaget has pointed out, however, that change is not substitution and that the insights of prior ages remain to provide the substrate for what follows. What seemed at first to be salient may recede over time to be subor- dinated to other dimensions of philosophy which prove to be more basic and to serve more richly through changing circumstances. This may prove true of the thought of Marx whose dialectical phase may have been overly stressed in the search for clarity and guidance, but whose dynamic of matter and rich human values and concerns remain and unfold. Thus the present study is divided into two parts. The first part has to do with the doing of philosophy itself: its relation to life, the history of its texts, its relation to economic theory, and the dynamics of its development, East and West. The second part looks more deeply into the content of Marxist philosophy. Should it be seen as totally without metaphysics or is this latent in its ontology? If so what is its sense of truth, goodness and beauty, not as abstract Hegelian categories, but as lived in the will and between free individuals. Indeed can the notion of love, long supplanted by the notion of justice, not only be reintroduced from Christian and Confucian sources but be implement- ed more fully in our times by the rich social vision of Marx? These are the issues examined in this work. Part I, “The Development of Marxist Philosophy Today,” studies the process of philosophizing itself. Chapter I, by Li Wenge, “Philosophy and Life,” treats a very popular topic in China nowadays, the relation between philosophy and life. This is- sue involves the relation between philosophy and philosophers, and between philosophy and the life-world. The author argues that Marx maintained that in a liberated age, creative labor is the human being’s great joy, and philosophy 2 Introduction should be a labor of love (though it is at the service of others). Labor is not es- sentialist, but rather, values man and relation, progress and function, creation and individuality, and so on. Chapter II, by Sun Meitang, “On the Modernity of Marxist Philosophy from the Point of View of the Transition of Philosophy,”argues that Marxist philosophers should open up to contemporary philosophy instead of stereotyp- ing it as degenerate. Indeed, a strong case can be made for the extraordinary modernity of Marx, since he rejected metaphysics already in the 19th century, and maintained that philosophy must be founded on human experience. Marx also anticipated the turn from discussion of ‘what’ to discussion of ‘how’, and advanced what is really a kind of ‘process’ philosophy. Chapter III, by Nie Jinfang, “The History of Studies of Marx’s Texts and Reflections on Its Methodology: A Preliminary Review,” classifies and in- terprets many of the posthumously published works of Karl Marx, because the majority of his writings were not widely available until the 20th century. In the 21st century, it is expected that the analysis of Marx’s work will be more aca- demic and precise, thus discrediting what can be called “vulgar Marxism.” Chapter IV, by Shen Xiangping, “Economics as an Historical Science: A Philosophical Review of the Crisis of Economics,” argues that economics has fallen into crisis precisely during the time it is affiliated with economic imperialism. The causes of the crisis are two fallacious hypotheses, (1) “scar- city,” and (2) the “rational economic agent,” both rooted in the failure of economics to operate as a “historic science” (instead, it is operating as a “natural science”). The author points out that the current crisis is, according to Marx and Engels, to be expected in that humanity is now in the stage of “objective dependence.” Chapter V, by Tang Zhengdong, “The Implication of Neglecting Ricardo in the Interpretation of Karl Marx’s Philosophy: A Comment on G. Lukacs’s Interpretation of Marx,” disagrees with Lukacs’s controversial interpretation of Marx, an interpretation emphasizing Marxist economics. Tang maintains that Lukacs goes wrong because of his reading of Marx’s texts from the angle of German classic philosophy. Lukacs considers the thought of A. Smith and D. Ricardo fetishist, whereas the latter, in Tang’s view, actually has a good grasp of the contradictory nature of social relations. Chapter VI, by Wang Yuchen, “The Study of Marxist Western Philosophy in Chinese Academe and Its Defects,” analyzes the role of “Western Marxism” in China since it was introduced by Xu Chong-wen in 1982. While rejecting the Soviet Schoolbook System, Wang also advises that Western Marxism (Gramsci, Althusser, Frankfurt School, etc.)—while suitable for the West’s transition to a postmodern age—is not suitable for China’s needs, an “Oriental Marxism,” etc. Part II, “The Content of a Contemporary Marxist Philosophy,” concerns isues to which Marxism can contribute in our day. Chapter VII, by Yang Haifeng, “Marxist Negation of Metaphysics,” argues that Hegel’s metaphysics of ‘absolute limitless idea’, and Heidegger’s Introduction 3 metaphysics of ‘limited survival’, are at bottom alike. The author argues that Marx’s successful critique of Hegelian metaphysics can be directed with equal success against Heidegger: thus it makes no sense to construct a ‘new’ Marxism on the basis of Heideggerian existentialism, as some Marxists are nowadays trying to do. Chapter VIII, by Yang Xuegong, “Marx’s Philosophy and Ontology,” argues that a strict distinction must be made between the model of traditional ontology (the traditional model Marx rejected) and ontology as a valid branch of the discipline of philosophy. The author maintains Marx never rejected the latter as such, and indeed, can be understood to have established an ontology based on “practical action and a practical model of thinking.” Chapter IX, by Cui Xinjian, “On Truth, Goodness and Beauty,” sketches the parameters of these three, emphasizing that they always exist in concrete history. The author rejects the simple subjectivist position and also the objectivist, arguing instead that truth, goodness, and beauty are both subjective and objective. In the section on truth, topics include “truth of life and truth of fact,” “truth of logic and truth of language,” and “truth of science and truth of art.” The section on goodness deals with such questions as the difference between ethics and the philosophical study of good and evil. As for beauty, it is the “transcendence and transference of the subject towards the object and the emotion of the subject itself.” Chapter X, by Zhang Mingcang, “The Theory of Will,” sets forth a Marxist ‘practical theory of will’, presenting the key points in his book Practical Theory of Will (Guangxi Renming Press, 2002).

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